WATCH HOW WE WALK

“We’re celebrating writers brave enough to change public discourse, generous with their empathy, offering deeply immersive experiences. Some delve into the sack of memory and retrieve the wisdom we need for our times, others turn the unfamiliar beloved. All are literary achievements we feel will touch and even transform you.”

“Blisteringly gorgeous prose…” – Publishers Weekly. July 2013

“Watch How We Walk is a thoughtful, well-crafted and impressive debut” – Globe and Mail. December 2013

Watch How We Walk (published by ECW Press in fall of 2013) is my first novel.

Watch How We Walk centres on a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and is one of the first published works of fiction to deeply explore and expose this unusual and isolationist religious lifestyle.

The novel traces one family’s splintering belief system and the erosion of their relationships, as Emily begins to question the rigid rules and challenge her upbringing. She becomes closer to her closeted uncle, Tyler, as her older sister, Lenora, tests and trangresses her and her parents’ limits – and gets a startling new haircut. After Lenora disappears, everything changes for Emily, and as she deals with her mental devastation she is forced to consider a different future.

Alternating between Emily’s life as a child and her adult life in the city, Watch How We Walk offers a haunting, incisive exploration of “disfellowshipping,” proselytization, and cultural abstinence, as well as the Jehovah’s Witness attitude towards the “worldlings” outside of their faith. Sparse, vivid, suspenseful, and darkly humorous, Watch How We Walk is an emotional and visceral look inside an isolationist religion through the eyes of the unforgettable Emily.

Available now in your local independent bookstore, or other retailer, or as an e-book or audiobook.